Intro: This is the TriDot podcast. TriDot uses your training data and genetic profile, combined with predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize your training, giving you better results in less time with fewer injuries. Our podcast is here to educate, inspire, and entertain. We’ll talk all things triathlon with expert coaches and special guests. Join the conversation and let’s improve together.

Andrew Harley: Welcome to the show! If you have never done so and you’ve been listening for a while, hopefully enjoying what you hear, we would love for you to take a moment and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Thanks so much in advance for that, it just helps our show find its way to the ears of new listeners in all the Apple algorithms and all that jazz. Very useful show today, as two TriDot coaches walk us through making the most of our indoor workouts. Now there are lots of reasons to head indoors, and I for one want to know how to use those sessions most effectively. Joining us to talk through all of this is professional triathlete and TriDot coach Elizabeth James. Elizabeth is USAT Level II coach and IRONMAN U certified coach who quickly rose through the triathlon ranks using TriDot, from a beginner, to top age grouper, to a professional triathlete. She’s a Kona and Boston Marathon qualifier who has coached triathletes with TriDot since 2014. Elizabeth, hello hello!

Elizabeth James: Well hello! I always look forward to recording a new episode, it’s great to be here with you guys!

Andrew: Next up is coach Jeff Raines. Jeff is a USAT Level II and IRONMAN U certified coach who has a Master’s of Science in exercise physiology and was a D1 collegiate runner. He has over 50 IRONMAN event finishes to his credit, and has coached hundreds of athletes to the IRONMAN finish line. And Jeff Raines, at the time we are recording this podcast you are fresh off IRONMAN California 2022. You had a great race that day, how are you feeling?

Jeff Raines: Thanks Andrew! It was a great race. I’m still hobbling around a bit, actually. After dealing with crazy winds out there and cooler temperatures hitting everybody this time of year, I’m actually excited to train indoors more for a little while. So, perfect timing for this episode.

Andrew: I'm Andrew the Average Triathlete, Voice of the People and Captain of the Middle of the Pack. As always we'll roll through our warmup question, settle in for our indoor training main set topic, and then we’ll wind things down with our cooldown. On the cooldown today, Vanessa will be interviewing two athletes from the U.K. who just raced in Kona. They actually lived with me in Dallas to heat train for the conditions in Kona, so we’ll hear what stories they share from their time in the Harley household getting ready for Kona.

Before we get too deep into the show today, I want to give a shout-out to our good friends at UCAN. Here at TriDot we are huge believers in using UCAN to fuel our training and racing. In the crowded field of nutrition companies, what separates UCAN from the pack is the science behind LIVSTEADY, the key ingredient in UCAN products. While most energy powders are filled with sugar or stimulants that cause a spike and crash, UCAN energy powders, powered by LIVSTEADY, deliver a steady release of complex carbs to give you stable blood sugar and provide long-lasting energy. I personally fuel my workouts with the orange-flavored Edge gel. They just released a pineapple-flavored gel, I gotta get my hands on that, I love pineapple. So head to their website, ucan.co and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. It used to be 10%, but the fine folks at UCAN have upped it to 20% off for TriDot Nation. That’s ucan.co, promo code TRIDOT.

Warm up theme: Time to warm up! Let’s get moving.

Andrew: An overwhelming majority of the time, as coaches, sherpas, and fellow athletes, we are helpful to the athletes around us at the races. However, even the most experienced coaches and athletes can make mistakes and unintentionally affect the race of someone else. Jeff, Elizabeth, have you ever – accidentally of course – done something on race day that ever so slightly could have messed up another athlete? Jeff Raines, what did you do, and who did you do it to?

Jeff: Actually, this is a great question, due to Worlds 70.3 happening right now, this weekend in St. George. Because when we were there earlier in the year, I was there coaching on site, and one of my athletes, Paul, was racing. He was early on the run course, and I saw him. His wife didn’t get to see him in T2, so she wanted some film. So I was there with my cell phone, filming ten seconds on his hip, and we got a run penalty for “coaching”.

Andrew: My goodness.

Jeff: He had to stop and stand there for I think two minutes, and he was stretching and all that. The crowd all around us was booing because they knew I was literally just filming to send footage to his wife. I know rules are rules, but I added two minutes to his race right there. Sorry Paul!

Andrew: Yeah, getting your athlete a time violation definitely qualifies here. Elizabeth, what is this answer for you?

Elizabeth: I don’t think I’ve got quite a story like that. I’ve been thinking as Raines was talking, “Oh my gosh, what am I going to say? Another one of these crazy warmup questions I’ve got to come up with an answer for.”

Andrew: Nice! Yeah, good!

Elizabeth: Something could have happened accidentally and I didn’t know it, but the only story I could think of that impacted another athlete WASN’T accidental. Let me explain first. It was an Olympic-distance race many years back, so athletes were allowed to rack their bikes wherever was available, on a first-come-first-served basis. At a local Olympic race that I was doing, I got to transition very early in order to snag a front row outside spot that would make my transition as fast as possible. So I set everything up, had gone for my warmup jog, and I was coming back into transition to grab my cap and goggles before heading to the swim start, and I see this gentlemen moving my stuff and trying to shift my bike over to the side so that he could put his bike on the end of the rack, and steal this prime transition spot last-minute. So let’s just say that his bike did not stay there. He did not get to rack there. So it probably did impact his race a little bit, but it wasn’t accidental on my part.

Andrew: I should say so! He was trying to impact YOUR race!

Elizabeth: Exactly! You get there late, you don’t get that spot.

Andrew: Those are the rules!

Elizabeth: So yes, I did impact his race, but not necessarily by accident. That’s the only story I could think of there.

Andrew: The one I’ll give here – and I actually just apologized to Kurt Madden for this when I saw him in Kona a few weeks ago – like Jeff, my story also comes from the 2021 IRONMAN World Championship in St. George, which of course took place in May 2022. Same as you, Jeff, Kurt went by us on the run course. Kurt is always in contention at these races, he’s in contention for a podium spot, a top-five, top-ten spot. So we know when you have Kurt coming up to pull him up on the tracker, see what place he’s in, give him those splits. Earlier in the day I had looked at it, and Kurt was in second place. He was well behind first place, but he was also well ahead of third place. So I was like, “Okay, cool. Kurt’s got this on cruise control, he’s going to come home in second.” So I hadn’t checked on Kurt Madden and his splits in a while, then all of a sudden Kurt comes by us, and he’s like, “Andrew, where am I?” And guys, I was so confident that he was still in second place that I was like, “Yeah, Kurt, you’re in second! You’re doing great! Keep on trucking!” So Kurt leaves, he continues on the road, and I pull him up on the tracker to confirm that what I just told him was correct. And I LIED to Kurt Madden. I pulled it up on the tracker, and Kurt had slipped from second to third. I felt so bad, because Kurt is just running along thinking he’s in second place when in fact he was third, and it was all because of me. I lied to Kurt Madden. I apologized to him in Kona. He laughed it off. That’s my story here.

I’m curious what our audience has to say here, so make sure you’re a part of the I AM TriDot Facebook group. We throw these questions out every single Monday when the new show comes out. I want to hear: have you accidentally done anything on race day that could have thrown another athlete off just a little bit? Maybe you were racing yourself, maybe you were spectating, sherpa-ing, I can’t wait to hear what stories you have to share on this one!

Main set theme: On to the main set. Going in 3…2…1…

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Sometimes it’s the weather that pushes us indoors, sometimes it’s traffic, sometimes it’s our schedules, and sometimes it’s just our own convenience or preferences. Whatever reason we find ourselves training indoors, there are certainly ways to make the most of those training sessions. Jeff, Elizabeth, I’m curious for each of you, what percentage of your bike sessions are you doing inside versus outside, and what sessions do you find yourself doing indoors most often? Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: This is such a great question. As you pointed out, there’s a number of reasons to go indoors. It’s not just weather, it’s not just preferences. Sometimes it is schedules, convenience. There’s a number of reasons why I’ve found myself training indoors throughout the years. As I was thinking about this though, it’s actually changed for me throughout the years, and kind of season by season. It’s also been influenced a little bit by where I was living, so the training location and the training partners that I’ve had around me at that time. For example, when I first started in the sport I didn’t have access to a lot of indoor equipment. I was also living in an apartment in Nebraska, so I didn’t have the full pain cave setup either. I trained primarily outdoors, and just shifted sessions if I needed due to the poor weather conditions, because that was truly my option. I was biking outdoors, I was running outdoors, and that was what I needed to do to get the sessions in without a lot of access to indoor training equipment. Then moving down here to Texas, we did set up our big home gym. The weather’s better here in Texas to be training outside more often, but there was a time where I was so heavily focused on increasing my bike and run thresholds.  I actually wasn’t doing a lot of racing at the time, I really just focused in on the training. I always joked that my training during that time was on the T’s: on the trainer, on the treadmill, and at the track. I think during that time, like 80 to 85% of my training sessions were indoors. Only some of those sessions, the ones on the track or the easy/long runs, those were outdoors. So that was primarily indoor. But then this past summer, I spent ten weeks in Boulder, Colorado, and I only did a couple sessions on the bike trainer or the treadmill with very specific intervals in mind. So I’d say 95% of my sessions were outdoors there. I realize that doesn’t give you a great answer for your question, because that has changed so much for me with the different locations that I’ve lived, the different places that I had for training, the primary training goal that I had at the time, and then just the availability of indoor training equipment. I’ve literally gone from 90% outdoors to 90% indoors. Right now I’d say I have a pretty even split, real close to 50/50, but I guess I’m mixing it up a little bit more than I realized.

Andrew: Yeah, something that I’d be curious for me to hear, Elizabeth, because I think for most of us listening we know that throughout the year, throughout our season, just as weather changes, as family schedules change, it probably changes just like your experience, where you find yourself in certain seasons indoors or outdoors more often. Did you find the effectiveness of your training changes through how much time you’re spending indoors versus outdoors, or is training training, and you see the improvement either way?

Elizabeth: Here’s where I think it has a lot to do with what your goal is of that training block. For example, when I wasn’t going to be racing anytime in the next six months, I spent a lot of time inside because it was really just threshold development. There was no skill needed. So I could really put my head down and go to town on those trainer intervals without having to worry about, “Okay, I need to put this power to the conditions of an outdoor ride, and cornering, and making sure that I have good bike handling skills to be able to translate that power to the road.” So yeah, I’d say that my indoor training was incredibly effective, and really hit the goals that I wanted it to. But if you’re going to be racing outdoors, which we do, you can’t get by without training outdoors either. So it’s really just what is that particular goal of that training block and that season, and I think indoor training can be incredibly effective, super efficient, and great gains to be had.

Andrew: For the bike training, I certainly spend more time indoors as opposed to outdoors, and honestly it’s just for the convenience factor. It’s much easier to have my bike set up on the trainer and midway through the day or right after work hop on and knock out that session without prepping a bike and prepping the gear and all of that stuff. Jeff Raines, for you, what is your balance and mix of indoors versus outdoors?

Jeff: A lot like EJ, ten, twelve years ago when I was new to the sport, there weren’t a lot of smart trainers and running with power. I was younger in income in all those things, as well. I didn’t have a gym membership, I couldn’t afford these things. But now I’m predominantly indoors. I’d say on the bike I’m 90% indoors. I’d say a lot of it’s because I have kiddos now, and we have soccer games Saturday morning and stuff like that, so I might start a 4:00 a.m. Rouvy or Zwift ride or something like that. But also where I live, there’s not a lot of safe or good places to ride outdoors. So I’d say nine out of ten rides I am indoors, and as I get closer to race day, I’ll get a little bit more outdoors. Or if I get a new piece of equipment or something I want to get outside and test those skills that EJ was referring to, the bike handling skills. What I like to do, if we do our two rehearsals two and four weeks out, the four-week-out one I like to always do outdoors if I can, nail it, and if everything goes well, then that second rehearsal two weeks out I will sometimes do that indoors for safety.  I don’t want to risk an injury or a wreck, knock on wood, or a bike mechanical.

Andrew: Both of you have a solid roster of athletes.  You are excellent coaches, you have a good group of athletes that you’re working with at any given time. Let’s take that same question and apply it to your athletes. What are you seeing other people do? We’ve all shared how we balance it between heading outside versus staying indoors. For your athletes that you coach, how often are they staying indoors for training? Does it vary quite a bit from person to person, or are there some trends that you see amongst all of the triathletes you coach? Jeff, what do you think?

Jeff: I find a lot of my athletes have to push their workouts around a little bit. A lot of it’s travel and work, family plans, especially on the weekends. There are definitely ways to get it done, but it is definitely unique person to person. One thing that’s cool, I try to create a fun team aspect for my athletes. We will all log in together on Rouvy or Zwift and ride together. There’s a gamification, a fun community aspect. So for those who can’t get out on the roads every single weekend safely with a group and SAG and aid support like that, a lot are wanting to take advantage of the gamification of these fun Zwift/Rouvy group rides.  That provides that safety, and you can do them at any time of the day, so we can start in the dark and unique hours. But there’s definitely good and bad of doing too much of that though. Too much of the indoor can create bad habits. There’s a right way and a wrong way to train indoors for sure.

Andrew: Yeah, we’ll talk a little bit about that specifically in a moment. I’ll fight the urge to go ahead and ask what some of those bad habits are, but know that I will ask about that here in about ten, fifteen minutes. Elizabeth, with your athletes, what balance are you seeing them have between indoors and outdoor?

Elizabeth: I would echo a lot of what Raines just said. It does vary from athlete to athlete, but I think some of the things that I see are a limitation due to weather conditions more than anything else. Some athletes that live in a more northern area do have conditions that are just unsafe for cycling or running during a couple months of the year, and safety is always going to be the top priority for choosing an indoor workout over an outdoor workout. For me, I’m a wimp when it comes to the cold, and I’ll choose indoor because it’s just more comfortable. For some of the athletes though, it’s not a question of comfort, it’s really just a question of safety, and they need to make sure that they’re being safe and able to complete those training sessions. As Jeff mentioned, family can also be a major influence on how much of the training needs to be done in the early mornings, or just in close proximity to the family. I think that is probably one of the most common trends that I see, at least with the athletes that I coach, and especially those with younger children. They may spend more time training indoors so that they can wake up, efficiently do a session while the rest of the family is sleeping, and then be available to help the kiddos get ready for school on the weekday mornings, or attend their activities. I think that’s one of the major things that I see is parents really wanting to make sure that they don’t miss out on that family time. They don’t want to miss children’s events or sporting activities. They’re really looking for that balance of efficiently training, which comes with that home gym aspect of, “I can go take my bike somewhere else to ride and get this session done, but it’s going to take me twice as long.  Or I can quick hop on the trainer, get this knocked out, and still be there for my family for the rest of the day.”

Andrew: So talk to us, y’all, about the benefits of training inside versus outside. Because Elizabeth, you referred this a little bit earlier, you can see different benefits during the different times of year.  There’s certain things you can focus on indoors, there’s certain things you can focus on outdoors. Does it matter to our athletes how much you’re training indoors versus outdoors? Elizabeth, what do you think?

Elizabeth: There’s a lot to unpack here, both with indoor and outdoor bike workouts, and indoor and outdoor run workouts, how much time should you spend on each. Let’s just go through and talk about some of the pros and cons. Beginning with the bike, as we’ve already mentioned, doing the bike indoors is time efficient, it’s safe, and there’s a number of different settings that you can use depending on the goal of the workout. Raines has already alluded to some great options with the community and being able to connect with others even if you’re still indoors. Depending on what type of ride you’re doing – you might be looking at heart rate, you might be looking at power, you might be doing specific intervals, or on cadence – there’s things where an indoor ride can help you really zero in on the thing that you’re focusing on for that particular session. So lots of pros there in terms of the focus, the efficiency, and the safety. But as we mentioned, there are some cons to it too, for example the lack of bike handling skills. If you’re not racing in the near future, yeah you can accomplish a whole lot inside. But if you’re going to be racing outside, I’m a firm believer in you gotta be riding your bike outside too. You need to learn how to shift gears properly. You need to understand how to gauge your effort level, and not just have the trainer take everything for you.

Andrew: We’ve even talked, Elizabeth, just anecdotally, as our team has traveled to IRONMAN races, 70.3 races – we always get to as many of those as we can throughout the year to cheer on our athletes – I think we’ve seen an uptick in on-course wrecks.  People just not being aware of where their bike is on the road in conjunction with other riders, people going through aid stations and missing handoffs and wrecking during a handoff, just all sorts of incidents.  Anecdotally, our belief is more people are riding indoors all the time, so those handling skills, those shoulder muscles, they get a little rusty, and you get out there on race day and you become a liability to the people on course because you haven’t spent some time outdoors. So definitely a factor.Make sure you are confident in your handling, both for yourself and for the athletes around you, so that you don’t have a story to tell like in our warmup question this morning, where you wreck somebody because your handling skills weren’t quite up to snuff.

Elizabeth: Absolutely. Well even on top of that, positioning. Sometimes you won’t necessarily ride inside the same way indoors as you would outdoors.  I’m sure we’ll get into that a little bit more too, but there are some athletes that go outside and they’re like, “Ah, aero’s killing me!” It’s like, “Well, how much time did you spend riding in aero ahead of the race?” If you’re always upright on the trainer indoors, that can have an impact too, that you’re body just isn’t used to that position. So if you’re going to be racing outside, you need to be outside just to make sure that all of those are in top notch.

Andrew: Jeff, that was a great list from Elizabeth, anything to add there on pros and cons, indoors versus outdoors that you teach your athletes?

Jeff: Yeah, I definitely think we have to talk about smart trainers in erg mode. I’ll briefly roll through it, but there’s a number of reasons why we buy a smart trainer. A couple of the big ones are we want power. We want to have watts.

Andrew: It’s the watts, Jeff, I gotta know my watts!

Jeff: Exactly. You buy that so you can have power indoors. Then I’d say maybe the other 50% might be erg mode, automating your workouts. Maybe you’re using a third-party app to automate your workout so you don’t have to switch gears. Whether you increase your cadence by ten or not, the watts will always stay the same. That smart trainer is so smart that it senses any change, and it will always keep you in the automated and prescribed watts that you were supposed to hold. Now it’s also safer than riding outdoors, and it’s easy to set up and you have some of these gamification aspects, but for the most part we have power indoors, and we have this erg mode. Free ride mode is similar to riding outdoors: you shift a gear harder on your bike, and it’s going to feel harder on the smart trainer, that’s free ride mode.  And if your cadence lowers or raises, the watts will lower or raise. But for the most part, I think people are using it for the erg mode. Let’s say you have a 60minute TriDot workout.  You load your workout into Zwift or Rouvy, you just don’t stop pedaling for 60 minutes, and you will get 100 TrainX score. You will hit every single watt exactly like you were supposed to. That’s good, but it can be bad. I would say in our developmental phase, in our preseason or early season where, like EJ said, we’re really wanting to develop our thresholds.  We’re really wanting to focus on that internal power, getting stronger.So in developmental we may use erg mode more often than let’s say stamina, or as we get into that race prep, closer to race day. What I do is I have my athletes, towards the end of developmental, maybe one out of your three bike workouts per week you will do in free ride mode. In TriDot for most of us, Thursday tends to be that slightly easier workout, or even if you are into stamina or race build, that might even be all Zone 2. So as we near the end of developmental and start early stamina, we need to start mixing back in a little bit more free ride so that we don’t create bad habits. Too much erg mode can be bad. Let’s just say you had a two-hour ride and you have it in erg mode.  You’re automating it, and Zwift is over there on the laptop, and you’re, “It’s running my workout.  If I just don’t stop pedaling, I’ll be good.” But then maybe over here on this table you’re watching a movie. As our minds drift, maybe deep into long stamina sessions or whatever, we tend to maybe not focus as much when we get tired. Maybe subconsciously we tend to drop the cadence, maybe pushing a bigger gear so to speak.  Over time doing that too much, as your cadence starts to fall but the watts stay the same, you’re mashing more, and the cadence is lower, you’re using bigger muscle groups, and what it can teach you to do is become a lower-cadence rider. It can create bad habits. So then let’s say race day is coming up, “Oh maybe I should get outside more,” or maybe have a B or C race coming up, and you might find yourself not able to translate those watts to the road. I’ve seen that a lot. Doing so much indoor erg mode, automated workouts, it’s great in that off season or those winter months. Maybe you added 25 watts to your threshold, that’s amazing. But if you continue that too long or don’t add in some free ride, you might find it’s hard to hit some of those watts when you do get in that free ride or ride outside. So there’s a time and a place to do that, and there’s also a time and a place to free ride versus erg mode. My Tuesday rides, I like to always erg mode. Automate it, download it –

Andrew: It’s got the intervals in there.

Jeff: Yeah, nail that. Thursdays, maybe every third one I’ll be in free ride, then maybe every other or every third Saturday long ride, that brick workout, I will free ride it as well.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I’m so glad that you talked about some workouts are great for it, but not all. One of the things that I tell my athletes, if they say 30-90’s on their schedule, is like “No, we’re not using erg mode for that. I want those 30 seconds to be all out. I want that to be a good VO2 max effort for you.” Using erg mode might limit your max there, with what comes through in the prescribed workout, so don’t use erg for that. Similarly, it’s difficult to do spin-ups or one-legged drills while in erg mode. You can toggle it on and off while you’re going through the workout. This is just a quick side note, but I always thought this was so cool. I want to mention it here while we’re talking about erg mode. Erg mode comes from the Greek word ergasia, which means “work”. So using erg mode, on your trainer, you are forcing yourself to work at a certain level. I always thought that was so cool! It’s like one of my little tidbits I like sharing with athletes, when they’re like, “What is E-R-G?” It’s like, “Oh, this is work mode. That’s where we’re going to go to work when we do these intervals.” But like Raines said, I’ll encourage athletes to use that free ride or simulator mode, because they need to understand how to shift gears with the terrain, to pay attention to their heart rate, to keep things within that prescribed zone even without the automation of the smart trainer. I think that’s also a great way to transition, and I know we’re talking primarily indoors now, but to transition from indoor to outdoor. If you spent months and months indoors and have been doing all of your workouts in erg mode, let’s take erg mode off.  Let’s start to understand the pacing, our effort, where your heart rate’s at, and then let’s take that outdoors. Andrew, you asked, “Does it matter how much you’re doing indoors versus outdoors?” It does, but it’s to such a widely varying degree depending on each athlete. As I said earlier, if we’re going to be racing outdoors, we need to be outdoors. But how much is enough to be safe and comfortable racing, I think that’s going to vary athlete to athlete.

Andrew: Alright, so let’s spend the back part of our main set here talking about getting our indoor sessions done. You guys helped really break down the pros and cons and how often we should be getting indoors and outdoors, super helpful stuff. Let’s get a little tangible here with what we’re using, how we’re using it in those indoor sessions. When we take our bike sessions indoors, what do we need from a tech or equipment perspective to execute those sessions?

Jeff: Well, for the bike, if you’re going to be indoors, you need to be able to put your bike on something, an apparatus to spin indoors. There are “smart” or “dumb” trainers, as they call them, and then there are wheel-on and wheel-off. Largely if the back wheel is going to be rolling on a roller, that would be more of an elementary or “dumb” trainer as we would call it. Now there are smart trainers that have power that are rollers, where the back wheel of the bike does roll on the roller, but those tend to be a little bit less accurate, a little bit lower on the expense spectrum there, so you kind of get what you pay for. Those higher-end smart trainers will typically be a wheel-off type.

Andrew: Is it worth it, Jeff, for somebody who might be thinking about this upgrade? If you can spend the money, is it worth getting the direct-on and not where your back wheel is on the belt, or is it personal preference?

Jeff: Hands down yes. I would get it. I personally would never use a smart trainer with a wheel-on roller. I would take the back wheel off, hook your chain onto the cassette of the actual smart trainer. Because the watts might be 10% different. Your bike’s power might be reading 200 watts, but that lower end wheel-on smart trainer might be 30 watts different, so to relieve that headache, that alone is worth it. But yes, every brand is going to have three tiers, basically. That high-end one with the extra bells and whistles, a middle tier, and then that more beginner one.

Andrew: So similar question, Jeff, along those lines, because I’ve gotten this question before. I have the middle tier, for example.  I have the Tacx Flux. The top tier is the Tacx Neo, and I know coach John Mayfield has the Tacx Neo. For both, you take the back wheel off, you put the chain around the cassette of the trainer, they both measure the watts super accurately. Is there a reason to upgrade to the highest-end one? Are those any better than the middle-tier ones?

Jeff: That’s an awesome question. If the funds are there, I would get the higher end, because typically the higher-end are within one percent accurate. Those middle-tiered ones are usually 3-5%, 3-8% accurate, then that 10% for those lower-tier ones. Also, your higher-end ones will have higher attainable watts, they might have ground simulation quality, they might have incline functionality. They will also weigh less, so if you’re going to travel with it they’re easier to fold up. Things like that, the extra bells and whistles do make it more. Now, if you’re going to use that “dumb” trainer without watts, you will need a bike speed and cadence sensor to sync with your watch to help guess your speed a little better, close that gap, the mileage, and make sure it’s a little bit more accurate. You’re also going to want to make sure your front and back wheel are the same height off of the ground. Some of these smart trainers, you can actually change the height of that so you don’t have that block under the front wheel. Those dumb trailers or the rollers tend to be higher off the ground than the front wheel, so you’re going to want some sort of a block to help raise up that front and make it the same height off of the ground. If you’re going to go the smart trainer route, you don’t HAVE to have a third-party monthly subscription to Rouvy/Zwift/Fulgaz. Some of the smart trainers have a free phone app where you can type in watts, and can adjust your workout in that regard. But if you want it to automate throughout and not have to touch anything, you might be willing to invest in that $5, $10, $15 monthly subscription to a third-party app to get some of the gamification aspects. If you’re using a heart rate monitor and want heart rate to show up on the screen, you might need an ANT+ stick. There’s a lot of Bluetooth going on, but for the heart rate to show up in real time on those screens, like in Zwift or something like that, you might need an ANT+ stick. I have to throw this out there before I finish up here is that make sure that you know the difference between your indoor smart trainer’s power and the power that is on your bike. When you do your monthly assessment, I have my athletes collect their power on both. Their bike’s power they collect on the watch on the side, and then maybe they’re using Zwift or something to do their 20minute bike test and collecting the smart trainer’s power. At the end, let’s see how they compare. “Oh, they’re five watts off,” or “Man, they’re 20 watts off!” What you can do on the home screen of these apps is you can tell Zwift or Rouvy which power to have your smart trainer run the workout off of. If you’re finding that your bike’s power is 30 watts different, you can have that session Bluetooth the power off your bike, and automate your smart trainer to run the workout off of bike power and not the power of the smart trainer. That’s just something to take note of, and be very intentional with, if they’re different.

Elizabeth: This is another option that we haven’t talked about yet, there are some athletes that use the indoor rollers.  They don’t have the trainer, they just take their bike, put it on the rollers, and ride inside.  I will admit that I have not done this, because I do not own this and I’ve also been a little intimidated by it.

Andrew: Yeah, because you can actually fall that way, there’s nothing holding you up!

Elizabeth: Exactly. Yeah. When I say it’s much safer to ride indoors, I mean it’s safer for me to ride indoors with my Wahoo Kickr. I don’t know that it would be safer for me to ride indoors on the rollers. But it is another indoor option, we haven’t mentioned that one yet.

Andrew: Jeff, quickly, because I didn’t script this onto the sheet but I know people are going to ask this question, they’re going to absolutely just destroy me in the press if I don’t ask about this: for folks who like going to spin classes – maybe they’ve bought a Peloton and the family shares a Peloton, I know Wahoo now sells a Peloton-like bike that’s marketed for cyclists – if it’s a bike inside that is not your tri bike, is that a viable option? Is that equivalent to having your bike on a smart trainer, or is that a little bit different?

Jeff: It is an option, and it is different. The Peloton others like it, they have watts. You can automate workouts onto those. But what I have found is that the watt readings on there tend to be a little generous.  So for example, maybe on a Zwift or Rouvy you averaged 20 miles per hour for that workout.  That same workout done on a Peloton you might average 24 miles per hour. So it is a great tool, it is fun, and I will always be an advocate of using those every now and then, mixing those in for something different and fun.  But I wouldn’t rely solely on a stationary bike in a gym or a Peloton as a main resource for your training. You need to be on your bike. You need to be using the same length crank arm and cassettes and things like that, because the geometry of those are a lot different than your bike. So for my athletes that have the Peloton and/or want to do a spin class, I say absolutely you can do that. Go do it with friends – I support the community – it is funner for you to meet three or four of your friends and do a spin class than just do it at home in the afternoon after work when you’re tired. I get it. There are pros and cons, but just don’t rely too heavily on those.

Elizabeth: I’m glad that you did bring that up though, because for me I’ll say this: I’ve grown and developed over the years, but when I raced IRONMAN Texas in 2017, 75% of my workouts were on a spin bike at the gym. I would do my weekday workouts after I was done in the classroom. I’d get in the car, drive to the gym, and meet some friends at spin class. I would take my TriDot workout there. The instructor was fantastic, he would just let me sit in the back and do my TriDot intervals. Then on the weekend I would ride outside. But yeah, the majority of my workouts headed into my podium finish at an IRONMAN were primarily done on a spin bike. So yeah, it’s better if you can be on your own bike, but don’t let that be an excuse to not be consistent with your workouts.  Because if it’s a choice between spin biking or no biking, we can make that work on a spin bike.

Andrew: So an athlete can absolutely set up their bike, record power and heart rate to their watch, and never have to put anything onto a screen in front of them.But oh boy, that is the driest way ever to live your life. There’s a lot of things that we can do to entertain ourselves for hours on the bike. Elizabeth, talk to us about the different indoor training platforms and other ways to stay entertained.

Elizabeth: Well, I know that you’ve said not having a screen is a very dry way to live your life, but I think the first thing that I want to take a look at is, are you merely staying entertained, or is the technology you’re using helping you best execute your workout? I would kind of challenge people on this. I personally can’t watch movies on the trainer. I can’t listen to podcasts on the trainer. Other athletes can and do, and they might be just fine. But when I’m on the trainer, the workout is my focus. If I try to watch a movie or listen to the podcast, it takes my focus away from the task at hand, and I’m really jeopardizing the quality of my session. Even if that’s a Zone 2 aerobic ride, I’m still focused in on my cadence, as Jeff was mentioning earlier. If we let our mind drift, maybe your cadence is getting slower, maybe you’re creating bad habits if you’re not in tune to what your body’s doing. So I would caution the entertainment aspect of it to make sure it’s something there in the background, but it’s not dominating what is holding your attention so that you’re losing the purpose of the session itself. With something like Zwift, I can have that on with the programmed workout, and it seems to really enhance my session because it makes sure that I am adhering to that prescribed session. It’s providing me with real-time easy-to-read metrics for power, cadence, and heart rate, along with the time remaining for each interval on the screen.  And as dull as it may sound, I do think there is benefit for also turning off all of those extra noises and just being really in tune with how your body’s feeling. There have been sessions that I’ve done where I don’t turn on music, I don’t have Zwift on. All I’m doing is using the Wahoo app to adjust the erg mode on my trainer, and it’s like, “Okay, here I am, I’ve got 12 minutes of this interval.  I’m doing the first half at a 90 to 95 cadence, the second half of this I’m doing at 80 to 85 cadence.” I’m really in tune with how does this feel, what is my heart rate doing, how is that shifting when I’m changing my cadence, which one feels more comfortable to me? All of these things can get lost if you have those distractions that may be entertaining. I get that sometimes we want the entertainment, we want to tune out a little bit and not feel all of the pain that indoor training can sometimes be, but there is a time and place to really be in tune with all of that as well, and learn about those efforts and what your body’s doing.

Andrew: Very interesting. I found for myself, Elizabeth, just not intentionally but by happenstance: when I’m in quality intervals and I’ve got some Zone 4, Zone 5, even Zone 3 I try to stay engaged, and if I have a movie or a Netflix show or even a podcast going in the background, sometimes that can distract me from nailing my intervals like I want to. So it’s usually just music for me during those times so I can stay focused. Then when I’m in Zone 2 for long periods of time I will allow myself to throw on Netflix or to throw on a sports game being played or to throw on a podcast. Sometimes those Saturday threshold-and-holds for example, I’ll have music playing through the first half of the workout where all the quality is, and when I hit that 20, 30, 40 minutes of Zone 2 and I’m going to be camped out there for a while, then I’ll let myself throw something on.

So just from hours and hours of sitting on a bike trainer ourselves, we all have tricks of the trade that we pick up, on helping those sessions go well for ourselves. Give us your next-level tips for comfort, effectiveness, for having a good quality indoor turbo session.

Elizabeth: Well, some things to have nearby are plenty of towels, and then always one more water bottle than you’re planning to drink. There have been many times where I started off and was like, “Ah, I have just 15 minutes left, but my bottles are all completely gone!” So I’ve learned to always bring one more bottle than I think I need, so I don’t have to text Charles and ask him to bring me more water. The other thing – and I understand that not everyone might be able to do this – but if you can, when you’re doing those indoor sessions, put your phone on “do not disturb” or don’t bring your phone in there with you. If you’re using your phone for music, at least try not to have that constant buzz. It’s very hard to stay focused if your phone is going off every couple minutes with notifications that are asking for your attention. Be intentional with your workout, and don’t have those constant distractions. Then the last one, I’ll throw this out there too, if you are doing a lot of workouts in erg mode, make sure that you’re still varying your gearing in order to wear your cassette more evenly. If you’re always in your favorite gear, chances are you’re going to have to buy a brand-new cassette when you go back outside because you’ve just prematurely worn down that one gear more than others.

Andrew: Yeah, a couple things I’ll add here.  I do have a rocker plate underneath my trainer that helps it feel more realistic, because you’re not stationary, you are rocking side-to-side like you do outside a little bit more. A lot of athletes ask me about that.  I’m going to save my full review for our YouTube channel debuting soon, so we won’t go too long here, but I will say there’s lots of options now. There’s rocker plates, depending on which smart trainer you have. Wahoo and Tacx are starting to put out different mounts, where you can actually mount your trainer to a little cradle that will move your trainer side to side so it feels like you’re rocking as if you’re riding outdoors. Look into some of those options, because I think I spent $600 on my rocker plate, but those price points are coming down as there’s more options on the market for that kind of stuff. Definitely worth looking into how to make those indoor trainer sessions feel a little more realistic, particularly if you do most of your training indoors.

Jeff: Yeah, I’d even throw out not doing every single session in aero, and then vice versa, don’t do every interval in aero. Especially those quality Zone 4's. When you’re indoors, a bunch of Zone 4, Zone 5 all down in aero can create some injuries, some tightness, things like that. Our body position’s a little bit different indoors versus outdoors.  I know we’ve talked a little about that on other podcasts, but we tend to ride more forward on the seat outdoors, and then indoors we tend to push back a little bit more.The seat’s wider, there’s more surface area, so that can even lead to more chafing and stuff like that, and people learn to hate riding indoors. It’s funny because I can ride three or four hours outdoors and I won’t have any issues with chafing, but an hour, hour and a half indoor ride and I have issues, saddle sores sometimes. So make sure you’re lubing up before those indoor workouts. But also, if you’re really upper Zone 4, Zone 5, I would do a lot of that sitting up, because your long course race day is largely going to be Zone 2, Zone 3 in aero. Just be cognizant of your fit and body position indoors, and I wouldn’t do too much super high-end quality all in aero. Just make sure you’re feeling good and there’s no discomfort there. If in erg mode and automating a session, don’t be afraid to bump the watts up or down. So in Zwift, let’s say, there are these white arrows on the top left-hand corner of your screen. If you’re feeling really good and you’ve got an eight-minute set and there’s two minutes left, don’t be afraid to add 20 watts. Keep the integrity of the Zone 4 TriDot workout, but you’ve got a window of Zone 4, and if you’re feeling really good maybe you want to up the watts. Or maybe your cadence is falling and you can’t get it back down, so you want to drop the watts to lower Zone 4. Don’t be afraid to bump the watts around when you’re automating in erg mode session. I like to ride with my athletes: we all start together on fun courses like Rouvy, and we start text threads and chats to stay entertained, so we can even kind of, “Hey, this hill coming up, let’s all ‘race’ up this hill,” and we create little segments and fun. So that’s something that you might want to incorporate into some of the indoor sessions. Grab a friend.

Andrew: Final question today, and it is a doozy. One perk of moving our biked training indoors is the proximity to our loved ones whilst working out. Assuming they are home of course, what is one favor you’ve asked a family member to do for you while you were training on your bike, or maybe just a memorable encounter you’ve had in the heat of an indoor bike training session. Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: I started smiling as you were reading this question, because there are so many stories here.

Andrew: We’ve all done it, we’ve all taken advantage of shooting a text, “Hey, can you bring me a cup of water?”

Elizabeth: Oh, there are so many stories to pick from. I promise I will not share them all, but I’m gonna share two of them. There have been probably more times than I can count when I have been on the bike trainer until 8:25, and you guys know our staff calls start at 8:30. So Charles is such a big help, he has turned the shower on, picked out my clothes, and made my recovery shake so I can finish up my last couple minutes of recovery on the bike.  It only takes those five minutes to be showered, changed, in front of the computer with the video on, five minutes later, breakfast in hand, ready to go. So yeah, the quick turnaround from the workout to the work call is pretty quick, and he’s doing a lot of things to make that happen. The other one I remember, I cannot remember which race we were leaving for, but I had not finished packing yet and we were in a time crunch, but I really wanted to get this last session before we left.  So Charles brought the suitcase into the hall near the bike trainer, and between intervals was bringing clothes for me to say yes or no to. He was holding things up, like, “Pack this? Pack that? Yes? No?” I know we talked earlier about staying focused during the session, so this would be an example of what NOT to do between intervals.  But yes, I have asked him to pack my bags for me so that we could go on vacation soon after getting off the bike.

Andrew: The other thing I wanted to mention here while sharing things that we do while on the trainer, we have a Traeger wood pellet grill.  A lot of times I’m doing my trainer sessions right after work, so it’s while Morgan and I are prepping dinner.  She’ll be doing the vegetables and the carbs, and I’ll be doing the meat on the Traeger. My Traeger actually has WIFI capabilities, so I have an app on my phone. I can put a probe in the chicken, for example. If I’m cooking chicken, it usually takes about 30 minutes for my chicken to get to the correct internal temperature. So I can do all of my quality, go downstairs, put the Traeger on the grill, go backup upstairs, continue to spin the balance of my time at Zone 2, and basically I’ll just spin at Zone 2 until my app tells me that my Traeger is at the correct temperature, then I’ll go down and take it off and we’ll have dinner. That’s not a family member cooperating with me in my trainer session, it’s me and my grill cooperating with each other while I’m doing a trainer session. So if you follow me on Strava and see that I have like a 56minute Tuesday trainer ride and wonder, “Why did Andrew bail four minutes early?” Well, my chicken or steak or fish, whatever I’m grilling, probably got done just a little bit earlier than I expected, and it prompted me to get off the trainer and go ahead and fetch that meat off before it got too well done. That’s just a humorous thing that I do between my grill and I while I’m on the bike trainer. Jeff Raines, what is this answer for you? Close us out.

Jeff: I don’t know if I can top that, literally grilling while biking. But this might top it. But I failed, so maybe it doesn’t. Let me explain. Trying to change a poopy diaper while spinning.

Andrew: Oh that tops it! Absolutely.

Jeff: I have a leather couch in my office next to my bike trainer. I was really into it, I didn’t want to mess it up.  So I was like, “Ruby, come here! Climb on the couch, bring me a diaper!” I tried, and let’s just say it was a fail. Fail, fail, fail. So I had to get off and do the duty (doody?). But I drop things.  I have a cart that I roll with the TV on it, and there’s cords and my laptop wire, and I’m having my kids army crawl under it. “Don’t hit the pedal! I’m gonna hit you! I’m gonna bonk your head!” So having the kids army crawl around the tables and stuff while I’m pedaling, trying not to get whacked.  Then I guess the same as you, Andrew, having my wife bring me another PB&J, or go start the truck. For the remote races, we had ten minutes T2. You do your bike race, and you had ten minutes to start your run. Well, I wanted to do it at a track down the street, so I’d have my wife start the car and have my drink ready and everything so I can just get off and jump in the truck and go. I’ve done that.

Cool down theme: Great set everyone! Let’s cool down.

Vanessa Ronksley: Welcome to the cooldown everyone! This is Vanessa, your Average Triathlete with Elite-Level Enthusiasm! Today I have the pleasure of welcoming two guests from the U.K., who lived the triathlete dream of racing in Kona, AND they also lived the TriDotter’s dream and stayed at the Harley Household for two weeks! Chris and Natalie, welcome to the show!

Natalie: Hi!

Chris: Hi, thanks for having us!

Vanessa: Now, you both qualified for Kona at IRONMAN Barcelona in 2021 without even expecting to. What was it like the moment that you qualified?

Natalie: Um, yeah, it was very surreal. I actually had no idea. I finished the race, I met Chris after, and we went and got the bikes, got food, went back to the hotel which is when I turned my phone on, and I saw loads of messages from friends and family, “You’re going to Kona! You won!” I was like, “What??” Yeah, it turned out I won my age group, and I completely had no idea, no expectations going into the race of winning, it was just to enjoy the day and finish the race. So I also cried an awful lot, but yeah, it was just an amazing feeling. We’ve watched it for years, so to be able to say that I qualified was just phenomenal.

Vanessa: Oh, I love that so much. Chris, what was it like for you?

Chris: It was a similar story, but mine was a bit more delayed. I didn’t win my age group, and because of Covid they weren’t doing the prize-giving the night of the race or the night after, so you didn’t know immediately, it was like a day later. Nat won, so she knew straight away, but I didn’t know that I’d be going, and I just got an email the day after. I don’t know if it was the day we got back, or the day before we got back, just got an email saying, “You qualified,” and I was like, “Oh my god, we’re both going!” It was totally surreal, but we immediately started head scratching, just sort of, “Right, are we going to do this?” We had only done one IRONMAN, did we enjoy it that much that want to go and do one of the hardest ones in the world? But yeah, it was a good decision at the end of the day.

Vanessa: That’s fabulous. Now Chris, you are a staff member with Precision Fuel & Hydration, so Andy Blow hooked you up with Andrew Harley, who hooked you up with a place to stay in Dallas so you could train in the Texas heat, which is a little bit different from the U.K. How did those training sessions go in Texas, and did you feel like they actually helped you once you reached Hawaii?

Chris: A hundred percent, yeah. I mean, we’d come off a pretty good summer in the U.K., for British summers anyway, it was mid-20’s most day, so we got quite a bit of the training done.  But stepping off the plane in Texas, it’s 40°C every day and was a total shock to the system, but it was exactly what we wanted. Because we’d heard the stories about Kona, we knew the conditions were tough, we knew that’s some of the toughest in the world, so we needed somewhere equally tough to train. Yeah, as you mentioned, Andrew and Morgan his wife were absolutely fantastic at putting us up. And their cat, Pancake, obviously he was a key host. The training sessions were quite different, because you have to sort of keep a lid on it quite a lot when you’re training in the immense heat. Your physiological response is a lot more exaggerated when training in the heat. It was a learning curve, but thankfully we were able to put quite a lot of scientific theory into practice and prepare our bodies the best way we could to help acclimatize to the heat and get used to very, very large sweat losses with fairly modest efforts, which is exactly what happens in Kona.

Vanessa: Yeah, and did you pack an entire suitcase full of Precision Fuel & Hydration products?

Chris: Pretty much. I mean, we were out there for the PTO race, the US Open in Dallas, so thankfully we have a base over in the U.S. so we didn’t have to bring it from the U.K. But then going over to Kona, as I’m sure you’re aware, getting anything in Hawaii is carnage, so literally our bags were full to the brim of all these suspicious white powders and electrolytes. But then everyone’s in the same boat, trying to take all their gels so they’ll have them. Quite a bit went with the bikes, which is good, but there was a lot of Precision coming with us.

Vanessa: I’m sure, that’s awesome. Racing Kona is the dream of so many triathletes. What were your highlights from the experience?

Natalie: There’s too many, but for me personally it was running Palani Hill, which is about 11, 10K into the race. At that water station, I was grabbing all the water I could, got to the top, had this volunteer come up to me passing some water. I was like, “Thank you,” looked up, and it was Jan Frodeno! I was just blown away. I had a smile on my face the next four or five miles. He said to me, “Have a good race.” Yeah, honestly, a massive highlight for me, was him being there to support the amateurs and cheer us on. Yeah, that was my highlight.

Chris: I didn’t believe her. “I know it wasn’t Jan Frodeno.”

Natalie: Yeah, he told me I was hallucinating! I told him, and he’s like, “You’re hallucinating, it wasn’t that!” And it took this volunteer to come past, and he’s like, “No, I can confirm, Jan Frodeno was involved.”

Chris: I was just jealous.  I must have been so out of it.  He was probably there when I ran up Palani as well, because we raced the same day, but I just totally didn’t.  I couldn’t even see three feet in front of me, I was zoning out everything, and it turns out the three-time IRONMAN World Champion was one of those people I zoned out.

Vanessa: That is so awesome.

Chris: But the best part of the race, I think, was probably about 30K into the run, so quite deep into the race by now. Our race plan going into it had been, “Keep a lid on it, and keep it under wraps” for as long as you can to not burn any matches or as few as you can, because you see people dying back all the time. So keep a lid on it to the back 30K, then if you’ve got something, then start opening the taps. And I sort of looked at the watch and went past the 30K, approaching the 19-mile mark, and just thought, “Right, well I better just start opening the taps,” and was able to give a lot more than I actually thought would have been in the legs. It was a really, really great moment, personally, just knowing that. I worked pretty hard until here, and there’s still a lot more to give. A lot of lessons learned, which is great. I could continue that increased pace all the way to the finish line and enjoy the finish experience, rather than the people that are sort of desperately crawling their way to the line because they can’t wait to be over, quite literally.

Vanessa: That’s incredible, I love that you were able to do that and turn it up as soon as you got to that point. That’s amazing that you had so much left in the tank, because as you said, a lot of times people are dying by that point in the race, of any IRONMAN, let alone in that heat. So for my understanding, you actually were very fortunate and both of your parents were able to make it to the race. What was it like to have a support crew there, especially coming from such a far distance?

Chris: It was nice to have some familiar faces on the island. We’d never been to Hawaii, they’d never been to Hawaii, either of our parents. We’ve grown up with them supporting us at all local races across the U.K., and every so often they’d come to one further afield, but to be able to bring them to Hawaii was certainly a reward almost for all those years of standing in a field in rainy England. It was really nice to have familiar faces out on the course at certain points. You only pass them for a couple seconds, but it gives you maybe ten minutes of boost after that. So yeah, it was certainly nice to experience it with them.

Natalie: Yeah, I think it was a shock to them. They’d never watched us do an IRONMAN, so it was a long day out for both of them, and they said they enjoyed the whole process. They loved the atmosphere, they just couldn’t believe the atmosphere of the Kona race. Everyone was super friendly, and they just said meeting the pros as well for them, they’ve only watched them a few times on TV, but seeing them in real life, they just didn’t comprehend how fast they’d go, and everything like that. Yeah, just to have the whole triathlon community was just such a nice place to be, and we felt so at home, and we’ve come away with so many friends.

Andrew: Well that’s it for today, folks! I want to thank coaches Jeff Raines and Elizabeth James for talking about indoor bike training. Be on the lookout, next week’s episode we will tackle indoor run training, so it’s going to be a great conversation next week. A big thanks to deltaG and UCAN for partnering with us on today’s episode. To experience UCAN’s LIVSTEADY products for yourself, head to their website, ucan.co, and use the code TRIDOT to save 20% on your entire order. To see just how impactful deltaG ketones can be for your recovery, head to deltagketones.com and use code TRIDOT20 to get 20% off your order. Thanks for listening, we’ll do it all again soon. Until then, happy training!

Outro: Thanks for joining us. Make sure to subscribe and share the TriDot podcast with your triathlon crew. For more great tri content and community, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Ready to optimize your training? Head to TriDot.com and start your free trial today! TriDot – the obvious and automatic choice for triathlon training.

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